Dwelling on what is most important...

I've been super busy thinking about our upcoming school year. Planning, organizing, making lists, buying supplies...it's been quite the mental whirlwind, if not all that much has actually been completed and accomplished yet. And I realized tonight that I was really getting Caught Up in it all. The planning, the reach for what will Work, the striving toward Perfection. My life-long battle with perfectionism, indeed.

Not that I still don't have a lot to do. Not that thinking about systems to make my life easier isn't valuable. Not that curriculum planning isn't important. But...I'm missing something. Something that I have a tendency to miss, again and again. Something that, until very recently, I didn't even really realize I *was* missing.

This post led me here, which took me here. And it all opened my eyes. About how critically important I am, as the mother of these young boys. "To be a Mother is to be the sacrament--the effective symbol--of place. Mothers do not make homes, they are our home." How beautiful is that? But it also got me to thinking about how difficult it can be to love without boundaries, difficult even - perhaps especially - to lose yourself in love for the Divine. I can show these boys that Love that transcends all else, in fact I must. Because what else is there than that?

It's not about academics. It's really not. It's not about teaching them "life skills". I hope they are accomplished, academically, and I want them to be able to live independently, sure. But it's not what it's about. It's certainly not about preparing them to be good little worker bees, another cog in the economic machine.

What is most important - what is all that really matters...I want them to Love the Lord.

I really, really want to show them the joy and awe and wonder of knowing the Lord, and loving Him. It is, truly, the *only* Important Thing. I can pick just the right math program, I can push them to excel academically, I can carefully plan out fiction reading to match up with our history spine. But how will I show them Love?

I can certainly demonstrate the love I have for them, their dad, and the Lord. I can live it, every day, and that is most important. But I also think that it is something that must be taught as much as caught.

My husband was a convert in his early 30s, and I was a woefully poorly catechized "revert". There's a lot about our faith that just doesn't come naturally to us, a whole lot we still just don't know. Oh, intellectually, we've got it in spades. My hubby has his bachelors degree in systematic theology. We can talk and and analyze and intellectualize quite well, thank you. But Loving the Lord? Contemplating His majesty? Meditation and prayer? It's difficult for us. But the glimpses we see of this fullness of faith - it's so incredibly awesome. I want to share that with my children. I want to show them. It's all that matters.

So...I'm thinking about how to do that. Suggestions are welcome!

I think instituting nature walks, and nature journaling, is more important than I realized, and I will definitely be adding that in. Studying the wonders of God's creation all around us will help - seeing how much God loves us in the things of this world He left for us is one path to knowing Him.

I think one thing I'd like to try, one thing that will be difficult at first...I want to add some quiet time into our day. Time to just sit and BE, to THINK, to let that "still small voice" speak to us...it's so important, and so lost in our oh so busy world. Definitely lost in the cacophony that is a houseful of boys.

More time for prayer and scripture study - how better to learn to know Him than to talk with Him and study the words He left for us?

I'd like to get more children's books about our faith, some coloring books perhaps, about the Rosary and the Eucharist. I need to speak to them on their level about all of this, and that's not always easy for me.

I have a lot to think about. Don't we all? :-) What an awesome responsibility we parents have!